I n a cloud of dust, high in the Malibu hills, the column of protesters surged forward. The Ruckus Society, trainers of activists, had chosen this empty field of stubble for the first march of the Democratic convention, still 25 miles away and a month distant. It was a drill. In a shimmer of mid-July […]
Mark Greif
Mark Greif is a founding editor of n+1 and an assistant professor of literary studies at the New School.
Posted inFeatures
Losing Hopi
When President Clinton stood this January in the Arizona sunshine at Grand Canyon Hopi Point and announced the designation of three new national monuments and the expansion of a fourth, he was confident that “the good Lord” must be smiling on him. “I know we’re doing the right thing, because look at the day we’ve […]
Posted inArticle
London Snapshot: Mayor Takes All
It was only a few days into the tense balloting for Labour candidate for the new position of Mayor of London in February. At the Town Hall in Ealing — a sandstone castle in the midst of this mall-heavy West London neighborhood — a small meeting had been booked in a basement room. Ken Livingstone, […]
Posted inFeatures
Crime and Rehabilitation
Pat Barker may be the most important progressive novelist to reach full artistic maturity in the past 10 years. The more famous she becomes, however, the less frequently do critics acknowledge her as an ardently political writer. Border Crossing, her ninth novel–this one a crime thriller set in contemporary, urban England–is likely to cement the […]
Posted inFeatures
Democracy in Motion
Focus groups, aux armes! The revolution will be won at last: not in the mechanisms of the state, but in consumer showrooms nationwide. This spring, when DaimlerChrysler makes its new PT Cruiser available to customers, we’ll finally see an automobile produced to resemble the mind of the nation. Evidently, the national mind is pretty mixed […]
Posted inFeatures
The Corporate ABCs
I knew something was odd when Microsoft’s spelling checker corrected my typing of Bertelsmann, the German corporation that controls most of the world’s English-language trade publishing. It’s not your average English word. Neither are Westvaco, Enron, and Supervalu; nor Chevron, Costco, and Ameritech. But all of those semi-words are among the corporate monikers Microsoft has […]
Posted inArticle
London: Truth in Satire
LONDON — Before the start of taping of the Mark Thomas television show, something of the New Britain is already in evidence here at the Bedford Arms in Balham, South London. A decade ago, this pub sat in the middle of a red light district. The chains on the doors of the large back room […]
Posted inFeatures
Potemkin Villages
Works Discussed in this Essay: Celebration, U.S.A.: Living in Disney’s Brave New Town, by Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins. Holt, 342 pages, $25.00. The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property Values in Disney’s New Town, by Andrew Ross. Ballantine, 340 pages, $25.95. Home Town, by Tracy Kidder. Random House, 349 pages, $25.95. […]
Posted inFeatures
Bloom in Love
The chief vice and virtue of friendship come to the same thing: overestimation. In the narrow world of those who knew him personally, it seemed possible that Allan Bloom, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, author in 1987 of The Closing of the American Mind, should have been counted among the immortal […]
Posted inFeatures
Revolution Number 9
The 29-year-old holding the microphone, Zack de la Rocha, is issuing calls, in only mildly metaphorical language and in quick succession, for war against capitalists, death to racists, justice for the oppressed, and possession by the workers of the means of production. He is backed by a guitarist and a rhythm section. He’s watched by […]
